Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X. • Hacker News Board

Re: Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

#291

Post by bdr » Sat, Nov 12, 2011, 11:05 PM UTC

Two programs that make my life on OSX way better:

Zooom/2, which lets me move and resize windows with my positioned anywhere on the window, activated with customizable key combinations. http://coderage-software.com/zooom/index_green/index.html

SizeUp, which lets me position and resize the activate window with customizable keyboard shortcuts. One common use case is to make one window take up the left half of the screen, and another the right half, if I'm working on something that needs information from both. http://irradiatedsoftware.com/sizeup/

Re: Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

#292

Post by robbles » Sat, Nov 12, 2011, 11:06 PM UTC

nupark2 wrote: post #255

X-Istence wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been using HomeBrew on Mac OS X and it is miles ahead of where MacPorts and Fink are. Definitely worth a try.

Miles ahead how? It's the same thing, but written in Ruby instead of Perl (Fink) or Tcl (MacPorts).

Homebrew tries to use the default libs and utilities that come with OS X / Xcode.

MacPorts and Fink try to create their own little microcosm of a Linux system complete with all libraries and utilities. They generally seem to fail at this because major packages are broken all the time and conflict in a million little ways with the system ones.

Re: Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

#293

Post by pnathan » Sat, Nov 12, 2011, 11:08 PM UTC

Pretty much everything I've read about Lion (and, ok, Windows 8) suggests theuy is taking a hard right towards non-techies.

Meh. Give me Linux. In a few years, I'll be 100% Linux I figure.

Re: Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

#294

Post by tobylane » Sat, Nov 12, 2011, 11:14 PM UTC

Is it really called the maximise button? I was expecting the same as Windows the first week, but I learnt it wasn't (meant to be) called maximise, I stopped using it. A fill-screen button would be nice, but you just do it once manually and it remembers.

Tim says the Library folder is hidden (power users would quickly change this, and several other things), and that the trashing system (or any copying/moving) is not as good as Windows. I do like W7's copy dialog, but it's very wordy, nothing in OSX would be that wordy.

Re: Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

#295

Post by click170 » Sat, Nov 12, 2011, 11:17 PM UTC

Bratwurst wrote: post #259

kisielk wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who cares about the justification. The major problem with it is that the behaviour is unpredictable. You have no idea what is going to happen when you push that button for a given app. In some apps, they'll go full screen. A browser might resize to fit the current web page. iTunes actually shrinks down to a mini control window. So now in order to use this button if a useful manner the user has to remember exactly wha…

Still better than Windows, where it just takes up your whole screen.

I disagree, because taking up the whole screen is what many people expect said button to do.

Re: Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

#296

Post by splicer » Sat, Nov 12, 2011, 11:20 PM UTC

I think I'm going to go back to Snow Leopard tomorrow. I've been running Lion for many months now, and I still can't stand it. The only reason I'm sticking with OS X (rather than using Linux exclusively) is that I've purchased tons of pricey software over the years (e.g. Logic Studio and Adobe CS4). I hope 10.8 ditches most of the retarded "features" Lion introduced, and reverts back to the wicked HCI that Snow Leopard has.

Re: Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

#297

Post by vacri » Sat, Nov 12, 2011, 11:20 PM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #289

vacri wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The guy does't sound like an advanced user and may be using a sledgehammer to pound in a nail. He's not complaining of bluescreens, he's complaining of corrupt registry keys, which can do as little as preventing the one app from installing the way he wants. Reinstalling Windows is a sledgehammer here. Looking up his error code, all he needed to do was reregister the library. If he's not an advanced user and so doesn'…

The technology has existed for decades to install applications without having to make potentially dangerous alterations to systemwide shared state. There's only so much you can blame on app developers. In the year 2011, shipping an OS that allows an application to corrupt the registry is just as stupid, if not stupider, than shipping an OS that allows the application to grab or generate arbitrary pointers into memory…

The problem here is that you think 'corrupted registry keys' means that the computer is unusable. A corrupted registry key just means that a setting hasn't been saved right - it could be as trivial as whether an app starts fullscreen or windowed.

The GP's statement did not say that the system was faulty, just that he was experiencing errors and he reinstalled. On enquiry, they weren't system errors, but errors around the installation of a program, for which he sledgehammered the result. You don't need the "Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable" to run Windows, or a great many things on windows. It wasn't the operating system blue-screening.

No one should have to know what "reregister the library" even means.

We're in 2011, no-one should have to know what 'engine oil change' means either, but someone still has to know how to do it.

Re: Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

#298

Post by Hoff » Sat, Nov 12, 2011, 11:23 PM UTC

saint-loup wrote: post #162

gregschlom wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one of the things I hate in OS X: many features are there, but hidden until you press some modifier key. Hold shift to maximize. Hold option while pasting to move a file instead of copying. Hold Cmd+Shift+. to see hidden files, and so on. That's the opposite of user-friendly.

The worst example of this tendency? Photobooth. You can press shift and alt to disable the flash and the delay (resp.), but there's no hint of this feature anywhere. I think it's not even in the help or in any documentation.

Open and Shift modifiers are listed in the help in Lion.

Re: Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

#299

Post by JBiserkov » Sat, Nov 12, 2011, 11:24 PM UTC

MostAwesomeDude wrote: post #108

whiskers wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"breathtakingly expensive hardware and software" Where can you get something considerably cheaper than the Macbook Airs that sport: - 128GB SSD (13") - 1440x900 (13") display - 4GB of RAM - Core i5 - operating system included - thin, light, and have quality construction For £1099 including taxes?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230... is such a thing, and at $1099 USD, it's nearly half of your quoted price. Unfortunately, it has a widescreen which has more pixels than you asked for, but somehow I don't think that's a bad thing. It comes with Windows, but if you want a real operating system , you can install any Linux you like on there. Or a BSD. Go for it. Also, I was going to just an…

I am an Asus owner (my third laptop in a row), and am actually considering getting a ZenBook, BUT it has no dockstation, while the MBA has THUNDERBOLT, which combined with a Thunderbolt display gives you an amazing configuration. Don't trust me, go look it up:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4832/the-apple-thunderbolt-dis...

http://www.apple.com/displays/specs.html

http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macboo...

Re: Tim O'Reilly: I am really starting to hate Mac OS X.

#300

Post by runlevel1 » Sat, Nov 12, 2011, 11:32 PM UTC

brown9-2 wrote: post #107

DougBTX wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Someone who knows readline better than me can tell you how to move between words. It's alt+leftArrow and alt+rightArrow. Other useful ones which work in native text boxes: cmd+leftArrow and cmd+rightArrow to move to the start and end of lines in text boxes cmd+upArrow and cmd+downArrow to move to the very top and very bottom ctrl+a and ctrl+e to move to the start and end of paragraphs shift+ any of the above to mov…

alt+left or alt+right doesn't work for me in Terminal out of the box (I usually use iTerm2 where it doesn't work either) - do you need to change any settings (such as emulation, terminal type etc) to get at that?

1) Go to the Terminal menu > Settings, click the Settings pane.

2) Select your preferred theme (left). It's probably the one listed as "default."

3) Click the Keyboard tab.

4) Click the "+" button to add a new Key to Action mapping.

• Key: cursor left

• Modifier: option

• Action: send string to shell:

• In the blank blank space: \033b

  Note: This is the ESC key followed by a lowecase “b“.

• Click OK.

5) Click the "+" button to add a new Key to Action mapping.

• Key: cursor right

• Modifier: option

• Action: send string to shell:

• In the blank blank space: \033f

  Note: This is the ESC key followed by a lowercase “f“.

• Click OK.